The follies of NAPLAN

Tracking Students' Grades Minute-By-Minute: Help or Hindrance? #edchat #edtech #stress #parenting. $3 billion not leading to better results for private schools. Photo: Tamara Voninski The state's expensive private schools are spending $3.3 billion more on their students each year than equally advantaged public schools, despite achieving the same academic results, a new report has found.

This excess cash is more than the total amount spent annually in the 600 most disadvantaged schools in the state, where critics argue the money would be better spent. The analysis is the latest in a series by researchers Chris Bonnor and Bernie Shepherd that examines data from the My School website. The numbers. They found private and Catholic schools are investing significantly more money per student than public schools. Advertisement Among moderately advantaged schools, for example, public schools spent $10,932 per student on average in 2012, the most recent data available. Yet, to achieve similar results, Catholic schools spent an extra $588 per student and independent schools spent $1389 per student more, much of which comes from school fees.

A groundbreaking court case. Opting out.
Jon Andrews sur Twitter : "Guiding Principles for a More Enlightened Education Policy @pasi_sahlberg #hgseat103 #wels15. Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools. Photo Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.

Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to “reduce over-testing” as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools. “I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, who has announced that he will leave office in December. “It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. Michael J. Mr.
Nanabarb sur Twitter : "The Grattan Institute's "Targeted Teaching" addresses a common misconception about how we should use NAPLAN results.

Schools spend up to 40% of the year on test prep, so that, shall we say, no child is left behind. Schools’ futures and funding depend on the number of students who fall into performance bands like "Advanced," "Proficient," and "Approaching Basic" based on bubble sheets and number two pencils. But this is not the rant you think it is. Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning: As a former high school teacher, I’m not opposed to standardized testing. Common assessments are a critical way of maintaining high expectations for all kids. Schools used to be gatekeepers of knowledge, and memorization was key to success.

Given this argument, many entrepreneurs see a disruptive opportunity to "democratize" education, meaning that everyone now has a platform from which to teach, and anyone can learn anything anywhere anytime.
Australia’s most disadvantaged children invisible in official NAPLAN results. It seems simple enough.

The idea behind the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing program is to keep tabs on standards. Governments and school systems can see who needs help and target policy, funding and teaching support so that all Australian students get the same opportunity to progress and be successful at school.

NAPLAN: Computers to mark written exams by 2017. Some students will sit the paper exam, while others will take it online.

Photo: Gene Ramirez Computers will mark the written component of the NAPLAN exams from 2017 under plans from the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, infuriating teachers who have vowed to fight the move. The authority's general manager, Stanley Rabinowitz, said he was "very confident" that enough progress had been made to guarantee the auto-scoring method would work by 2017.

Then again, Atwell is no ordinary teacher. At her school, all classrooms have libraries, standardised tests are forbidden, classes are small, every religious and cultural holiday is celebrated, and children pick the topics they write about and the books they read. And read they do: her pupils wolf down about 40 books a year, well above the national average. Earlier this month, Atwell was named the winner of a competition to find the world's best teacher. She accepted the Global Teacher Prize, dubbed the Nobel Prize of teaching, at a ceremony in Dubai.
Jason Borton sur Twitter : "Why testing doesn't do a thing to help kids learn.
ASA_VAM_Statement. Greg Whitby sur Twitter : "Discovered a whole section devoted to #naplan in the bookstore! Why am I not surprised.

NAPLAN not the key to understanding what literacy is. "Phonics and phonemic awareness are most important when students need the clearest understanding of the alphabetic principle.

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Instructional Alignment as a Measure of Teaching Quality. High_Stakes_Testing_An_Educators_Perspective.